Mahjong, an ancient game that originated in China, has long been one of my most favorite games on the computer since the inception of the computer. I can remember years ago when I first got into computers, finding a good software driven Mahjong game was a big deal. Especially when the Mahjong tiles became more 3D in appearance.

Recently I went on the hunt on the internet to see if I could find a decent online version of Mahjong. I hit the jackpot when I found 247 Mahjong [CLICK HERE] .

247 Mahjong is an Adobe Flash based game that you can play directly in your web browser (no software install required). 247 Mahjong features sounds, background music, a timer and 8 different tile sets to select from.

To Play Mahjong: Mahjong Solitaire is a tile matching puzzle game. You may click on any “free” tiles (those that are on the edge) to select them, and match them with other free tiles with the same face to eliminate them from the board. Beat Mahjong by eliminating all tiles.

I would venture to say if you are working in a business, government or educational environment you are using the Microsoft Office Suite of applications (such as Word, Excel, Access and Powerpoint) to get the job done.

Most people only know the basics of this powerful Office Suite and only challenge themselves to learn more when the the environment they are working in demands its. Any edge you can get to make your job easier, with Microsoft Office, can pay dividends in the end; not only for you, but for those you are working for.

To gain an edge with Microsoft Office, it is like anything else; you have learn it. If you are currently looking for a resource (for FREE) that may help you get that edge, then visit the The Mouse Training Company [CLICK HERE] and check out the FREE Microsoft Office Quick Reference Guides and Training Manuals you can download. When to get to the site, slightly scroll down the page until you see the guides and manuals. The manuals and reference guides are in the PDF file format.

The Mouse Training Company is a London based compapny that specializes in customized training solutions for its’ clients.

During all my years of working around PC’s I have learned to not only monitor for the visual cues of the onset of problems; but to also monitor for the audio cues, as well. For example, if I am assisting someone on a PC that may be experiencing problems, I am lost if there is not a hard drive LED light to monitor the activity of the hard drive.

Just this past week, and I plan to elaborate further in another article, I assisted someone with removing data from a hard drive that was diagnosed by a computer tech as being dead. When I got hold of the drive, I performed an old (and very questionable trick), to get the drive to spin up; and, performed a little known desperation move to actually retrieve the data.

Again, that is another story, but there was a very noticeable sound when I fired this drive up. It was a sound, based on my experience of being around PCs, that definitely was not good. The drive was emitting a periodic clunking noise which indicated a problem with the head mechanism in the drive. Believe me, I am no tech expert, but when I heard that sound I knew the drive was on the verge of death.

It is easy for me to describe the sound, but what are the typical sounds a hard drive will make when failing?

To give you an idea of how a hard drive actually sounds when it is failing, I encourage you to visit the web site Data Cent. They have actually recorded the sounds of failing hard drives, from a variety of manufacturers (such as Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, Hitachi/IBM, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Quantum).

If you are someone that is working toward becoming a computer tech, I encourage you to visit the Data Cent site [ HERE ] to hear the excruciating pains being emitted from these hard drives. When you get to the site, turn up your speakers and click on the small arrows to hear the sounds. Once you hear those sounds, you will not forget them…

Windows 7 Users: If you are using Windows 7, did you know you can create a desktop background slideshow to show off your pictures and wallpaper images? To learn how to use this feature [ CLICK HERE ] .

Typically, I turn my PC “on” in the morning and “off” at night; however, during the day when I am not at the PC I will put it to “Sleep”.

To put your computer to sleep, click the Power button on the Start menu or click the arrow next to the Lock button .

“Sleep” is a power saving mode that the computer will go into where all current computer activity is paused. Your computer will appear that it is “off” when in sleep mode.

Prior to going into “Sleep” mode the computer saves all open documents and programs to memory so that when you come out of “Sleep” mode, all is the way that had left it. I do recommend that if you are working on something important that you manually save the document instead of relying on the computer to retain the last saved version of the document (in case a power outage would occur).

The reason I prefer using the “Sleep” mode during my computer idle time, is that I can rapidly resume working by either pressing the “Power Button” on my PC, moving the mouse or by tapping a key on the keyboard (usually the spacebar). I don’t have to wait for the computer to boot up when coming out of “Sleep” mode.

Added note is that many PC’s are already configured, through the computer’s power management configuration, to automatically go into “Sleep” after a period of inactivity. Many notebook PC’s will also go to “Sleep” when the lid is closed and will resume when the lid is opened.

So the next time you are working on your PC and you step away to take a nap, simply give your computer some nap time as well, by using the “Sleep” mode.

This is actually a repost; however, it contains a couple of browser tips that you can’t post enough. If you don’t use it, you will lose it!

Have you ever visited a web site where the text size is to small to read or you are finding that your eyesight (like mine) is going downhill, and reading certain elements varies from page to page?

Here is a “little known and little used” computer tip for you internet users… By holding down the “Ctrl” key and moving your “mouse scroll wheel” you can “zoom in and zoom out” on a web page. You can also do the same thing, without using the mouse or “Ctrl” key, by hitting the “+” (plus) and “-” (minus) keys on the numeric keypad, located on the right side of your keyboard. Give it a try! It will not permanently change any default settings. If you find that you need to return to the normal default (original) setting, simply hold down the “CTRL” key and hit “0” (the number zero). This works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and probably all of the browsers. Give it a try!

The “zoom in and zoom out” tip, using the “Ctrl and Mouse Wheel” will also work with other applications as well, with varying results (e.g. Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, many graphic viewers/editors, pdf readers, etc…). For example, in Microsoft Word, when working on a mult-page document, you can “zoom out” to the point that it will tile (show all) your pages on the screen.

Added Tip: Was helping someone today on a small computer screen complete a task online in their web browser and toggled to full screen. They were astonished and asked “How did you do that?”. Simply hit “F11” on your keyboard to toggle back and forth from full and normal screen.

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